Tell 'm like it is, HTC. "HTC is disappointed at Apple's constant attempts at litigations instead of competing fairly in the market," said HTC general counsel Grace Lei in a statement, "HTC strongly denies all infringement claims raised by Apple in the past and present and reiterates our determination and commitment to protect our intellectual property rights."

Could you name 5 innovations of iPhone that you couldn't develop in 1 week. "

Innovation doesn't need to be difficult to develop. For example, in my opinion the biggest innovation on the iPhone was the phone application. On every phone up until the iPhone there was a talk and end button. Even the smartest smartphone up until that point was a phone that could run applications. And, really that's the way companies like Ericsson and Nokia thought about smart phones internally, they were high margin, fancy phones.

Then Apple came along and totally changed the paradigm. The iPhone isn't a phone that can run apps, it's a palm sized computer that has a phone application. That very small change has completely turned the cell phone industry upside down. Some companies that believed the phone is more important than the apps are now getting killed (see Nokia, RIM). Others had to throw away everything they'd been working on and release something completely different (Android, Microsoft).

But the end result was in early 2007 every phone, smart or otherwise had a send and end button and was thought of as a phone that maybe could run an application or two. Today smart phones are thought of as mobile computers, the phone functionality is a secondary concern. And those who haven't made the switch (look at RIM's current Blackberrys) are getting hammered in the market for it.

That is an example of something very small that required next to no actual development that changed the way people think about a category of products. If redefining a product category isn't an innovation then I'm not sure what is.

And that is were you and anti software patent people strongly disagree. Turning a device from a phone with a computer to a computer with a phone is a good idea but should it be protected? And why should it be protected?
The reason for patents is that you put a lot of effort in developing something new. Before you share this invention with the world you want your return on investment and the government gives you this in the form of a limited patent.

And that is were you and anti software patent people strongly disagree. Turning a device from a phone with a computer to a computer with a phone is a good idea but should it be protected? And why should it be protected?
The reason for patents is that you put a lot of effort in developing something new. Before you share this invention with the world you want your return on investment and the government gives you this in the form of a limited patent. "

When did I say what Apple did was patentable? I simply said not everything innovative needs to be difficult or take a long time to develop. Do you dispute that? And last time I looked "lot of effort" is not one of the requirements for patentability, it simply needs to be novel. Finally, do you dispute that there are inventions that were incredibly difficult to think of but the actual implementation is quite straightforward? And doesn't it follow that those would be the inventions that require the most protection since once the idea is on the market it's trivially easy for competitors to copy it?